No Relation
by Ikonopeiston
Summary: Is blood kinship the only bond which is important?


9/23/07

**No Relation**

Nooj was very tired. It had been an exhausting day and the stump of his left leg was aching. He thought it had never healed properly although the specialists he had consulted said that there was no obvious problem and it must be psychological rather than physical. Whatever the reason, he hurt and wished he were on his way to his own tent and a chance to prop up the damnable fake leg and rest instead of heading toward a meeting with his own past.

He bent his head to enter the typical dwelling in the floating village of Kilika and paused to let his eyes adjust to the dimness after the glaring sun on the boardwalk. Slowly, he made out the figure of his aunt sitting in the woven cane chair on the opposite side of the circular room.

"Greetings, young Nooj. You will forgive me for not rising to welcome you. It is so hard to get up, I do it as little as possible." She laughed at her own weakness and held out a leaf-thin hand.

"Muliru, I'm glad to see you again. It's been a long time since anyone called me young." He limped painfully across the intervening space and bowed over her proffered hand.

She laughed again. "I'll forgive you for the blatant lie if you'll tell me how your life is faring. You have changed a great deal since last I saw you. I had heard you had been gravely wounded a year or so ago but no one gave me the details and I did not realize it was so bad. Those spectacles are new and your leg... is the entire leg gone?" There was no mistaking the depth of her concern.

"Not all of it, just to mid thigh. But the left arm was torn completely off."

She widened her eyes in surprise, then closed them and a single tear crept down her cheek. "I didn't notice the arm. You must have mastered the replacement well. I hadn't known they had produced such lifelike prostheses."

"The Al Bhed are remarkable engineers." Nooj's face was noncommittal.

"Nooj, my child, I am so very sorry for your losses and so very proud of your courage in carrying on."

"Let's not talk about it. It's over and done with and nothing can change any of it. I apologize for not being here when my Uncle Hulort died. I would have come but my duties in the army prevented me."

Again she laughed, long and genuinely. "My dear, your uncle would have risen from the dead had he seen you at his Sending. Don't apologize. He was never kind to you and you have no reason to concern yourself with his passing."

"But I could have been here for you. You were his wife for forty years and loved him. My relation to him had nothing to do with comforting you. I should have respected your loss." Nooj stared at the floor.

There was an awkward silence such as sometimes occurs between strangers. Muliru broke it by calling out, "Prext, bring us some tea."

From the inner spaces of the house, a little blue-skinned Hypello materialized and bowed. "Yesh, mishtresh. Right away."

The presence of the Hypello did more than anything else to impress upon Nooj how aged and ill his aunt was. When he had last seen her, she had been a vital woman to whom the need of servants would have been an insult.

"Don't go to any trouble. I can't stay long; it's a distance back to Mushroom Rock Road, even by hover." He was firm in his words.

"I was hoping you would stay the night, at least."

"Too much work waiting for me. How are you doing these days? Is your weakness just a passing problem?" He was hesitant to ask since stoicism was a tradition in their culture.

The woman smiled somewhat forlornly. "I seem to have contacted the illness we water-dwellers so often fall victim to. You remember, the stiffening of the joints and so forth. That's the reason I asked you to come visit me. I am told I do not have much longer and I wanted to see you again and try to explain."

"I'm owed no explanation from you. You always treated me well and did your best with the difficult child I must have been." Nooj was shaken by her news but thought it best not to show his dismay. As a child in this house, he had been tutored on concealing his emotions.

"Well, your uncle and I had no children of our own and he made a foolish mistake by not rearing you as a real father after your mother's death. She was his sister and you were of his blood. He should have adopted you formally and ..."

Nooj held up a silencing hand. "Stop. That's so far back I don't even remember it clearly. He did what he thought was the right thing. I don't think he even cared overly for my mother when she was alive."

"No. He didn't approve of her choice of a husband and let that poison their relationship. But he could have found much joy in treating you as the son of his body. He should have loved you." She sighed.

"But he didn't and I learned not to let it matter. Don't grieve on his behalf or on mine. I learned to be strong and rely on myself. That's a good thing for a Warrior." Nooj did not raise the eyes which were fixed on his hand, clenched on the handle of his cane.

Muliru said softly, "I loved you. You were my son, the child I never bore but felt to be mine as though as if you had come out of my body. I should have insisted you stay with us instead of sending you to military school as soon as you were old enough. I didn't do right by you, my dear."

"You did your best. If I was going to be a Warrior, it was the proper thing to get me started on that path as soon as possible."

"What happened that summer before you left? You changed then and your uncle started being afraid of you."

This time it was Nooj who laughed. "That was when he stopped beating me and was in a hurry to get rid of my presence. I had killed my first man that summer, one of the guards at the Temple who caught me trespassing." He was careful to protect his three companions in the escapade even after all the years which had passed. "Remember the time I was shot in the shoulder?"

"Oh my lost aeons, you were only a baby. How did it happen?" She clasped her hands over her mouth.

"I was old enough to carry a knife and it was an accident. As I said, I got caught and was afraid I'd be held for ransom. Now that would have ticked Uncle Hulort off good and proper. The guard chased me and shot me so I had to turn and fight."

"You told us you'd stepped in the path of a hunter. You almost lost your arm then. Maybe it was all fate. I would never have thought you were strong enough to kill a grown man with only one hand usable. I begin to see why you're a hero." She poured a cup of tea for each of them from the tray the Hypello had silently placed before her. "Here, have some of these biscuits. They were made fresh this morning."

"Thank you but the tea will be enough for me. Is the Hypello much of a help?"

"You were never a heavy eater." She ignored his effort to change the subject. "I used to try to think of things you would like and make them for you but you would eat only a bite or two and then leave the table."

"I didn't mean to put you to so much trouble. You must have rued the day Uncle Hulort had to take me in."

"No, no. Nothing like that. I told you I held you a blessing for a barren woman. I wanted to pamper you and make you happy. Nooj, did you ever think of me as a mother?" There was a plaintive note of desperation in her soft voice.

"Yes, sometimes in the night when my uncle had beaten me, I would lie in bed and tell myself if we could kill him, you and I could make a family. I think I always knew that you cared for me."

"Loved you." She corrected firmly. "How did Hulort find out about what you'd done?"

"I told him. The next time he raised his hand to me, I warned him that he'd better not do it or I'd kill him as well. He believed me." Nooj smiled grimly at the memory.

"Oh. I didn't know. He never told me."

"He wouldn't. He liked to think of himself as a brave man who would have been a Warrior if he hadn't married and settled down."

Muliru laughed, this time sadly. "Poor soul. He was not brave and I always knew it. He was a good man at heart but he never let himself show that side because he thought it was less than manly. I saw the inner goodness and that's why I married him. But, Nooj, he never let you know about that part of him. I think he must have loved you in the end because he left his estate to you after my death. I've done the same. You will be a very rich man soon."

"Do you think money matters to me?" Nooj burst out in scorn. "You called me here to tell me you were dying and I would be rich?"

"No. I called you because I love you and wanted to look at you and talk to you at least once more before I go to the FarPlane. Nooj, are you still so bitter because of how we treated you?"

He was quiet, thinking about the years he had spent in this house, quivering in his bed, vowing revenge for the most recent hiding or lecture. "Yes. I believe I am to an extent. My uncle abused me when I was too young and weak to fight back. He had the idea that the way to bring up a child was to break its spirit and its will. And you let him do it. Did he do it to you too?"

She nodded. "He never beat me physically. But he was determined to be the head of his household and I chose not to confront him. I failed you, my son, and I am so utterly sorry. I know all my regrets will not change a thing and that I have no right to plead for your compassion - not after all you have borne in your life. But I wanted you to know that I wish I had done things differently and that I know I should have defended you." Her face was calm but tears ran freely down both cheeks and her fingers, clasped in her lap, twisted and wrung together in agony.

"I know pain, dear aunt, I live with it every day. You are not the source of that pain nor of any other. I have purposely forgotten most of my childhood; it was unbearable to remember. You have no need to ask my forgiveness. You did what you had to do and you gave an orphaned child what happiness and love he knew in those years. Don't grieve for the past." He reached over and laid his large right hand on her writhing ones and stilled them. To his own surprise, he realized he was speaking the truth. The past was over with and the image of his uncle he had despised for so long had no further power over him. What was done was done. The woman before him was in need and he was a Warrior - one who rescued the needy.

"Nooj, my son, you are the man your uncle might have been had he had the courage to try. Your coming has been a great comfort to me. Please stay the night so that we may have a happier conversation in the morning." She wiped her tears. "And so I can try to feed you one more time." She smiled weakly at him.

Nooj slept well in his boyhood room. He did not dream.

6


End file.
